Robotaxi outage in China’s Wuhan leaves passengers stranded in moving traffic
Corroborated by 8 sources from 8 publishers
TL;DR
An unknown technical problem caused a number of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech giant Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the middle of traffic, trapping some passengers in the vehicles for more than an hour. In Wuhan, a city in central China where Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, people on Chinese social media reported witnessing the cars suddenly malfunction and stop operating. Photos and videos shared online show the Baidu cars halted on busy highways, often in the fast lane.
Sources
1
Wired
https://www.wired.com/story/robotaxi-outage-in-china-leaves-passengers-stuck-in-cars-on-highways
2
Dow Jones World News
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/baidus-apollo-go-robotaxis-stall-in-chinas-wuhan-a9b143ad
3
CNBC 10000101
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/01/baidu-robotaxis-caused-crashes-in-wuhan-reports.html
4
The Verge (Tech)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/905012/baidu-apollo-robotaxi-freeze-china
5
ABC News Technology Headlines
https://abcnews.com/Technology/wireStory/passengers-stranded-moving-traffic-after-robotaxi-outage-chinas-131605532
6
BBC News (World)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge91r9j80o?at_campaign=rss&at_medium=RSS
7
BBC News (World)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge91r9j80o?at_campaign=rss&at_medium=RSS
8
BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge91r9j80o?at_campaign=rss&at_medium=RSS
9
BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge91r9j80o?at_campaign=rss&at_medium=RSS
10
The Guardian (World)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/01/china-robotaxi-outage
11
The Guardian (World)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/01/system-malfunction-causes-robotaxis-to-stall-in-the-middle-of-the-road-in-china
12
TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/01/system-failure-paralyzes-baidu-robotaxis-in-china